This specification provides the definition of the Advice on pending works message (CONAPW) to be used in Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) between trading partners involved in administration, commerce and transport.

Typically, this message is to enable a contractor who intends to start works to advise public authorities and water, gas, telephone, electricity ... distributors of his intention and to request them to send back plans or information under any form concerning existing networks.

The Advice on pending works message may be used for both national and international applications. It is based on universal practice related to administration, commerce and transport, and is not dependent on the type of business or industry.

The parties involved in such transfers belong to various industry sectors :

the construction industry: contractors are often the originating parties of the message.

gas, electricity, ... and more generally network distributors who are among the recipients of such messages, and who will process them to check whether they operate networks in an area concerned by works.

public authorities, which may be

clients or designers of projects

in charge of specific responsibilities eventually

affected by the projects.

in some cases, this type of advice may contain a legal status, the consequence of it may be the liability of the sender or receiver. Some insurance companies also may be concerned by this message.

Within the construction industry, there are numerous rules which govern this part of the process. Although, efforts have been made to keep the design of the message generic, other potential users of this message are cautioned about the specific and original role for which this message has been designed.

This is only one of a group of messages being designed for this flow among construction industry. Many aspects have to be considered, they are described in the following paragraphs. "Sending" process of the message : the message is originated by one party, but is sent to numerous recipients (from 10 to 20). This is the reason why an opportunity is given to use this message in conjunction with an appropriate service message which enables the sender to indicate to a VAN operator that a considered message has to be distributed to more than one receiver. This message contains a request for information, to be provided back in another appropriate EDI message. The type of the information to convey in the "flow" CONAPW is not only alphanumeric, but some geographical and graphical information may be conveyed in conjunction with the advice itself, in order that the recipient gets all the relevant elements on the pending works. There is another appropriate EDI message being designed to convey information on plans and drawing organization, and it has been decided not to put this information in the message CONAPW itself, but to give an opportunity to link CONAPW with the drawing organization message. In addition, some recipients are interested in receiving the list of the other recipients. For the reason that this is not systematic, and in order to keep the design of the message as simple as possible, it has been decided to use an other appropriate service message providing a circulation list, and to give an opportunity to link CONAPW with this circulation message.

A segment identifying names and addresses and their function relevant for the whole advice on pending works. In the construction industry parties involved are e.g. the contractor, the designer, the client.

A segment to specify which other documents (drawing organization, circulation list, plans, etc.) are to be sent and processed in conjunction with CONAPW, and what is the communication channel used to transfer them.